I don’t know who I feel sorrier for on press tours, the actors, who have to answer the same boring questions a thousand times, or the entertainment reporters, who don’t feel like they’ve done their jobs unless they ask the same boring questions that have already been asked a thousand times. Okay, that’s a lie, I definitely feel worse for the actors, but only because entertainment reporters all seem like such tumbling, tumbling dickweeds. Proving why he’s a national treasure, Samuel L. Jackson had a novel response to Fox Houston’s Jake Hamilton when asked about ]

He was actually talking about Jackie Brown there, but who could tell? Anyway, Jackson refused to answer Hamilton’s question until Hamilton actually said the word “n**ger,” not the sanitized “the n-word.” Transcript follows, video below.

HAMILTON: There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the use of the N-Word in this movie and-

JACKSON: No, nobody, none- The word would be…?

HAMILTON: (*sigh*) Oh, I can’t say it.

JACKSON: Why not?

HAMILTON: I don’t like to say it.

JACKSON: Have you ever said it?

HAMILTON: No, sir.

JACKSON: Try it.

HAMILTON: I don’t like to say it.

JACKSON: TRY IT.

HAMILTON: Really? Seriously?

JACKSON: We’re not gonna have this conversation unless you say it.

HAMILTON: …

(starts at 13:54)

JACKSON: You wanna move on to another question?

HAMILTON: Okay. Awesome.

JACKSON: (*laughs*)

HAMILTON: I… I don’t like to say it.

JACKSON: Oh come on!

HAMILTON: Will you say it?

JACKSON: [turning serious] No, f*ck no. That’s not the same thing.

HAMILTON: Why do you want me–

JACKSON: They’re gonna bleep it when you say it. On your show–

HAMILTON: I know, but–

JACKSON: SAY IT!

HAMILTON: I can’t, I- If I say it, this portion won’t make it to air.

JACKSON: Okay, forget it.

HAMILTON: Okay, I’ll skip it. Sorry, guys. It was a good question.

JACKSON: No it wasn’t.

HAMILTON: It was a great question.

JACKSON: It wasn’t a great question if you can’t say the word.

Okay, Jake, fine, so you can’t say the word. That doesn’t mean you can’t still paint it on a flag and shoot it out of a gun while you unicycle. Come on, dork, entertain me. They’re not paying you to be Cronkite.

This kind of stuff always brings me back to Luis C.K. who said something along the lines of “If you say ‘the n-word’ you’re an asshole because all you’re doing is making someone ELSE think the word ‘nigger’.”

“Everybody – everybody has different words that offend them, different things that they hear that they get offended by – I’m – to me, the thing that offends me the most, is every time that I hear the “N” word. Not “nigger” by the way. I mean the “N” word, literally whenever a white lady on CNN with nice hair says: “The ‘N’ word.” That’s just white people getting away with saying nigger, that’s all that is. They found a way to say nigger. “N word.” It’s bullshit cause when you say the “N word” you put the word nigger in the listeners head. That’s what saying a word is. You say the N word and I go oh she means nigger. Your making me say it in my head. Why don’t you fuckin say it instead and take responsibility, with the shitty words you wanna say. Just say it, don’t hide behind the first letter like a faggot just say it, say nigger you stupid cunt. I don’t know I don’t care. Somebody will kick my ass.”

I think that the interviewer was right not to say the Nigger word, insofar as it is in no way career enhancing for a clip of him saying it to exist.

There was a radio show where Patrice O’Neal (RIP funny man) said the word “kike” was derived from the German/Yiddish word “kikel,” meaning “circle,” that Jews once used regularly for one reason or another. CK responded that the word “nigger” originated this one time when somebody was acting like a nigger.

well i think that reporter is in a no win situation. but honestly, he should have known better than to be a meek fumbling super white guy and ask Samuel L. Jackson of all people a question like that. so he deserved what he got. but no, caving in and saying “ok mr. jackson, nigger!” would not have done him any favors and he did the only thing he could do and just moved on in shame

Thing is, that guy seems like a very good interviewer. Most of those were not hack questions. Also, Foxx didn’t seem to be fond of saying “nigger” either, even when it was central to what he was talking about.

Like most non-Southern white people, I only say “nigger” when I am singing along to hip hop music. Which I think is fine as it’s like literary license, like you are reading Huck Fin or something (people saying “N-Word” when reading aloud from “Huck Fin” or other literature is a pet peeve of mine. We all see the word as it’s written right there, just fucking say it!). Saying the “n-word” is just childish in such contexts I think, and it actually gives the word more power than it deserves. It’s just a word, afterall, and like most words its meaning depends mostly on the context within which its used.

Which I think is Jackson’s point here. If this guy wants to ask a serious question about Jackson’s feelings on the word “nigger” then why can’t he say the word like an adult? Why’s he have to pussyfoot around it like a child? If you were discussing the word’s meaning in a linguistics class you wouldn’t say “n-word” would you? So why do news reporters always have to say “n-word” like they are a bunch of 8 year olds?

Let’s watch the white reporter wade into the old racial minefield and laugh as he struggles to follow the shifting PC Pop Culture Rules we all had a hand in writing. Because there is no risk in a white entertainment reporter saying nigger. None.

Yeah, just in further defense of the reporter Jaime utters “nigger” under his breath but nearly inaudibly if he finished the word at all and later refers to it as “the n word.” So with Jaime being as comfortable with it as he claims to be – however comfortable that may be – he still doesn’t take it lightly.

Being who I am, I would only say it in front of him if I surrounded it with ” you mean that horribly hateful word …” or the like.

No shit I said said it in front of a high school class when I was debating my teacher. He called Bush supporters “crackers”, and I not being anywhere near old enough to care about political parties said that that was basically the same thing as calling black people niggers. Whether that’s accurate or not, I don’t know or care-I was 18. The fact is I totally threw down the N-bomb for the first and what I still assume will be the last time ever (in a high school mind you) and totally got away with it.

using the term “n-word” does give the word more power Nas wanted to release his “untitled” album with the title “NIGGER” to reduce the power of the word and well you can see what happened it dropped and was called “untitled”